IBM completes sale of storage unit to Hitachi

SAN JOSE--IBM Corp. here today announced it has completed an agreement to sell its hard disk drive operations to Japan's Hitachi Ltd.

Under the agreement, Hitachi has purchased the majority of IBM's hard-disk-related assets for $2.05 billion. Hitachi, which recently made the acquisition, will form a new storage company called Hitachi Global Storage Technologies.

As planned, Hitachi paid 70% of the purchase price to IBM today. Hitachi will pay the remainder to IBM over the next three years.